A revolutionary new surgically implanted eye lens developed by Canadian researchers will give people suffering from severe eye conditions or just wanting better eyesight perfect vision.
Forever.
The Ocumetics Bionic Lens, created by Dr. Garth Webb, an optometrist in British Columbia, will give patients perfect vision, ending the need for driving glasses, progressive lenses, and contacts. The implant will also be immune to eye disease or age related eye conditions because the lens replaces that of their natural eye.
Webb says that anyone over the age of 25 is the best candidate, because that is when the eye is fully developed.
“This is vision enhancement that the world has never seen before,” he said, “If you can just barely see the clock at 10 feet, when you get the Bionic Lens you can see the clock at 30 feet away.“
Surgery to fit the lens can be done within 8 minutes. The lens will be custom-made, folded in a saline-filled syringe and when placed in the eye, will unravel itself within 10 seconds, immediately correcting a patient’s vision.
Pending clinical trials on animals and then blind human eyes, the Bionic Lens could be available in Canada and elsewhere in about two years, depending on regulatory processes in each country.
The lens has taken over eight years to develop, costing approximately $3 million in research and development fees, international patents, and the securing of a biomedical manufacturing facility.
Webb said he was driven to free himself and others from wearing glasses since he was prescribed glasses in Grade 2.
“My heroes were cowboys, and cowboys just did not wear glasses — Perfect eyesight should be a human right.” he said.
It is likely the United States would be the first market the new product is available in, sometime in 2017.
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